As everyone knows by now: I don't want to have children. But seriously, I feel inundated with images of pregnancy and how nothing matters to people except their children. And I started to wonder: Why do people with children have no lives?

Sure, there is the rare occasional parent who has a life outside of their children. But I wasn't raised that way. My mom made it very clear that we were her first priority--even over her own husband (our dad). Now, as much as I was flattered by her telling me this, even at eight years old I felt guilty for being born. I saw how my parents didn't spend much time together. I saw that they barely talked anymore. I saw that they didn't even really look each other in the eyes. That was when I decided I never wanted to get married.

12 years later, I did get married, ironically enough. However, I realized that just because you get married, that does not obligate you to procreate. I figure I'll save my marriage and allow the rest of humanity populate the overcrowded earth.

( 2comments )

at May 2, 2005 12:12 PM  Julie said...

Ahmen!

 

at May 5, 2005 11:10 AM  Alex_Knight said...

I agree, people with children sometimes have no life outside of their children. Especially if they are a stay at home parent. I was reading an article about parenting (Of all things...) and one point in the article it was talking about a school where all the mothers descended on the Senior's last day so they could watch their children eat their last school lunch ever. Freaky enough as it was it became worse when they described a scene between a mother and her son. The son was obviously embarassed that she was there and told her "You have no life!"
The mother, without missing a beat replied, "You are my life, son."
Reading it just made it sound obssessively frightening.